Grace Saturated Gravity

Dear old and new friends, The Galilean Liberator freed us from the need for sacred temples or churches in order to experience God. We were taught this deliverance by the events in his life, death and resurrection; none of which occurred within sacred sites. Paradoxically, we now go inside church buildings to celebrate what initially happened outside in nature and ordinary places. Churches exude a magnetic pull even for those who rarely or no longer enter them. Does this gravitational power flow from the fact they are “God Houses,” or is their attraction a remnant of childhood religious memories? Regardless, God doesn’t need majestic church buildings to draw us! The Divine Author inscribed in everything a powerful, irresistible gravitational energy towards all that is beautiful, lovely and handsome. Whenever you involuntarily feel attracted or erotically drawn to a beautiful or handsome person know you are experiencing the same mysterious magnetism that gives birth to stars and created the universe. That same magnetic attraction awesomely permeates everything that exists! Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, priest, theologian and paleontologist of the 20th century, said that the heart of the Big Bang universe was passionate love! The operating energy of the entire universe is erotic attraction, a passionate allurement that yearns for cosmic unity and more wholeness. The saintly mystic Chardin also said that love seeks not only union, but more being, and all being is primarily relational: so to “be” is to “to be with.” He also said, “I exist in order that I may give of myself for it is in giving that I am myself.” Next Thursday in Holy Week we keep the Memory of Memories of a consecrated meal eaten in a plain upstairs room in Jerusalem. There the Teacher and his disciple-friends gathered to share another friendship meal that would be their last. That Last Supper Memory became the galvanizing core of the future gatherings of his followers. At each of those millenniums of mystical meals they observed the Memory of how he gave away himself…body, blood and spirit to all. The captivating energy within that Sacred Memory shouts, “Remember, so you also can give away yourself in love.” In churches today at the conclusion of that Memory Meal do any rush to the doors to give away themselves to others? If the Last Supper remembrance now is merely a prayer service with a sermon and communion, does that mean the Holy Memory suffers dementia? If so, let those present at the Memory Meal, or a few of them, breathe life back into the Memory by pledging to live it out daily by giving away themselves in love to all. In this meditation we have explored love’s gravitational magnetism. Can that mysteriously dynamic energy that created and sustains the universe, and also pulsates in each of us, perhaps be The Source?

Going Into the Woods

This musing is the reverse of “being out of the woods”—it is about going into the woods. Henry Thoreau, desiring to live as fully as possible, went into the woods of Walden Pond to live a solidarity life amidst nature. “I went to the woods,” he wrote, “because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Something no one wishes is to discover at the hour of death “…that I had not lived!” Unlike Thoreau, few if any can go off to live in a remote cabin in the woods, as work responsibilities and family duties prevent such an idealistic withdrawal. However, another way exists to achieve Thoreau’s goal. My old Potawatomi Indian friend, Leslie Evans, often quotes the famous words of the Indian Chief, Dan George: “Today’s a good day to die!” He tells me that he uses those words like a daily mantra—regardless what big agenda he has planned for the next day.

“Oh no,” say my blog readers. “This isn’t going to be another reflection on death is it?” On the contrary, it is about enjoying life in great abundance. I know this from experience as I also use Chief Dan George’s words in the morning when getting out of bed, driving my car, and before sharing a meal with a friend. Those five holy words at the dawn of a new day cause it to explode with possibilities and even adventures. When driving, I like to tag on to his words, “…and this is the last time in my life I shall enjoying driving,” or before a meal, “…and this is going to be my Last Supper with this good friend.”

I have found it especially beneficial to inject Chief Dan George’s words with a powerful dose of imagination in order to activate the feeling that whatever I’m doing is being done for the very last time. That sense of absolute finality added to his words seems to magically squeeze life in great abundance out the most common of activities and changes miraculously the monotonous mundane into a marvel.

If you desire to feel the high voltage surge of life flowing through you, it is advantageous to be deeply convinced that you may actually die—today! Believe that with your whole heart, and you will be rewarded with what Thoreau sought in the woods—that when it’s time to die you will know you have truly lived!

So if today you are asked, “Where are you going on this fine day?”, answer back, “I’m happily on my way to my grave.” Living daily under the sinister shadow of death will enable you to both live and die happy, and to be vivaciously alive.

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.